By now, President Donald Trump’s infamous photo of himself awkwardly holding a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington D.C., is well known. That peaceful protestors were gassed to get that photo opportunity has also been established.
But this isn’t about any of that. This is about the photograph that resulted from the walk across the street, the one by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead. It’s about the fact that it is tremendously terrible. It’s a huge failure.
That’s not a knock on Craighead. She’s an excellent photographer who has a long career, even serving as first lady Laura Bush’s official photographer during the George W. Bush’s administration. She’s a consummate professional who has dutifully photographed the Trump White House since 2017 with nary a protest. Or so we think.
Take a look at this photo from Oct. 16, 2019, perhaps the first crack in the armor that signals that maybe, just maybe she disagrees with her boss here:
Craighead's October 2019 photo of Nancy Pelosi engaged in a heated exchange with President Trump.
In the photo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is delivering a stern, standing rebuke to a seated Donald Trump about the ramifications of removing troops from northern Syria. At the time, it sparked a lot of debate about power and sexism, with each actor looking at it in different ways. Trump viewed it as Pelosi having a meltdown, tweeting out as much, while Nancy Pelosi viewed it as standing up for herself, and changed it to her Twitter banner to troll the president. With one photo, Craighead had managed to both please her employer and trolled him at the same time.
Maybe that was the first crack in the dam, with it finally breaking that fateful Monday, June 1. Perhaps it was the usual lack of preparation when it comes to the Trump team’s photography. He did, after all, just use a lazy, in-the-office, on-the-spot photo for an official portrait and didn’t even let his defense secretary know what was about to come. What are the chances a lowly photographer would be briefed so that they could prepare?
But no, Craighead is a seasoned pro. Even without warning, she could make something. From a technical standpoint, focus, exposure, and white balance are perfect. I argue that this photo, framed this way, and photographed so lackadaisically was a silent cry for help from a photographer who’s just had enough but is too professional to openly protest. Or it’s an intentionally bad photo created in a show of protest over what had just transpired.
Take a look at some of Craighead’s other photos from that failed photo opportunity here and here. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
It's a shame that the majority here wish the site to remain politically neutral but are pretty much ignored. It's a case of wanting clicks more than producing articles that reflect the sites core and that's photography.
And, it's exacerbated by articles written by people with a political agenda. That's not objective journalism, it is barely hidden activism.
Business is business and these articles get more eyeballs because of the controversy. It's money in the bank. Keep putting your 2 cents in. They can use the money I'm sure!
I know, I know. But I keep getting back to this site hoping for some honest photography-news. These kind of articles put me off. It's a pity.
It's funny since they have many articles that are legitimate photo related and get almost no comments. The ones everyone complains about get the most attention and make Fstoppers the most money. If people just ignored them Fstoppers would post fewer and fewer of them. Yet people can't resist.
Again: I know :) I find myself in the comment section of these articles thinking : "Darn it, I did it again!"
Wasim Ahmad mensioned how President Trump is awkwardly holding a bible, but doesn't explain what he thinks is the proper way. Then he go on to say his article isn't about that. So why did he even mention it? Perhaps he should get back to writing articles about photography and leave his political opinion for sites where it's better suited. Fstoppers is truly going down hill these days.
It's true, I did not go into proper Bible-holding technique, and perhaps that would have improved the article here. That said, now that you got me thinking about it, I looked at photos where one would be holding a book that would look better than this - Shutterstock has more than a few examples: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/man+holding+book?kw=shutterstock&ds_...
I feel like if Craighead knew this was coming, she would have been able to plan this better, but something tells me that wasn't the case.
:-) touché. That link does really make a point. Let' see how Craighead's following photos do look like. I understood your story right away. How must a photographer feel if being used this way? Check out Heinrich Hoffmann's story. This man would have never in any way trolled his employer.
Oh dear....aaand another "anti Trump" article for the SJW fraction to wank off too.
Are you going to be a new Buzzfeed or Vice?
What about the article is anti Trump? Aren't this all facts which are mentioned? And doesn't the author explicitly refer to that one photograph? I think you guys lost it completely. That man is not holy, he is not untouchable. To me it looks like fanaticism and a complete lack of critical distance paired with a tendency to suppress any other point of view. Poor country it is at this times. What once was a beacon of democracy is not to be recognized. Shame on you!
We don't care about what the author thinks. What many of us do care about is that this PHOTOGRAPHY site is being turned into a political sounding board. Worst, it's a sounding board for activists posing as authors.
Want to post an opinion that has little or nothing to do with photography? Find the address of your local paper and send them a 'Letter to the Editor'.
We?
And it is not the author who is expressing political statements but rather the comments, don't you think?
Agree with your first sentence, even though I'm among the "we" he speaks of. Do you really think Wasim's article is apolitical? Phrases like "infamous photo", "awkwardly holding", "silent cry for help", "show of protest", et. al. are commonly used in writing to guide the audience's view without overtly appearing to do so.
Any business with this president is political. Surely, I agree with you that the publication of such a story leads to many and violent comments and therefore traffic, as we can see here. I think the problem is more with that person involved than with the story.
We're all adults here and we shouldn't be so touchy. Nobody was hurt, no foul language was used. And if the author dislikes this person, he is not the only one. So what?
Getting back to the subject I'd say that image above is indeed below average of the regular work of the photographer. As said, I feel pity with the photographer. I don't know about you, but I for my part, when taking portraits of the same person over and over and never see a real smile or a sympathetic expression, I'd put not all my energy in taking this kind of photos any more. And this is not about politics. Compare to the previous president. I am sure that any photographer would prefer him as a subject over this person.
Having spent years doing corporate photography, I know exactly what you're talking about and I'll be the first to say, I would prefer to photograph President Obama over President Trump but wouldn't assign qualities to either man's expressions (e.g. "sympathetic"). I also agree that everyone can like who they like and dislike who they dislike but, in this case, Mr. Ahmad is being disingenuous, at the least. The photographs presented aren't wonderful and that is likely due to the value of photography assigned by the President. Frankly, I don't see that as surprising at all since, in my aforementioned former experience, people who photograph well have a high opinion of photography and those who don't, for whatever reason they don't, tend to have a low opinion. If that were the extent of his article, there would be no issue, or at least shouldn't be: some people will find any reason to bicker. Instead, he prompts the reader to see dispute between the photographer and the President, and more specifically, due to his perceived negative qualities in the latter.
I appreciate the polite, thoughtful comments; would that all people who disagree, did so.
Her name is Craighead? That's epic on its own!
Just getting back to the article let me ask Wasim a question or two.
How would you do the St John's Church photo to improve it?
Shealah Craighead may be the official Whitehouse photographer but was she allowed move about freely or was she told "Stand here - photograph that"?
Does she have control over what photographs are released?
Another issue she had with the St John's Church photo is all she had to work with was - man - book - sign, and she probably could not move around to change her view point. Plus she could not show the amount of riot police holding back the demonstrators. Shealah did what every photographer should do to cover the bases, a wide, medium and a tight shot.
I couldn't have done any better under those circumstances and I don't think anybody else could either.
I thought about this in response to a commenter above - I suppose if I knew a book was involved, I would have researched some poses with books to at least make it look like he's contemplating a passage or page in the bible. Shutterstock had some good examples that I thought would work here: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/man+holding+book?kw=shutterstock&ds_...
Seriously, research good poses ? She was probably told grab your camera and a bible. POTUS is going to the church across the street in 3 minutes. LET"S GO!!!
Mike, my guess is you are correct. When even General Mark Milley did not really know what was happening the photographer would not have know.
Good luck with asking President Trump to pose. I have had the pleasure of photographing Presidents (not US Presidents) and Royalty. Where thay are is where you take the photo. How they stand is how you take the photo. Unless you are commissioned by their office to take the photograph of course. Anybody else then you can move and pose them but not heads of state.
On the "has been established" claim (and link), I followed the link, downloaded the images, and examined the metadata. Four of the pictures were taken the day AFTER Trump's photo op. On the day of Trump's photo op, the EARLIEST picture taken was Trump holding the Bible. The rest were taken AFTER his picture was taken, which means that NONE of the shocking images of tear gas and police action support the story's claim.
FYI, I am an Independent, and not a Trump supporter.
This is interesting. The foto's on this site seem to be taken during a two day period (june 1st and june 2nd) However, the times are wacky. 2:10 AM? That's in the middle of the night, right? So is 03:07 AM.
And, the last photo, with Trump in it, seems to be from the 2nd of june, which is wrong. So either I;m seeing different data or something fishy is going on. I'll get my alluminum hat!
I think Aljazeera used the images that supported their narrative, and were either ignorant of the metadata, or (accurately) assuming that no one would check it. I never thought of looking at image metadata for any news article before, but I'm going to start.
You missed to big point: two photo's of Trump during the photo-op show a different date. This means that the Exif-data on these pictures in not reliable. Which means that you can not use this information in any discussion (other than a discussion about their photographic qualities that is...)
Multiple cameras with different time zone settings?
That could be. There are eight photographers represented. They were all careful to have their copyright info set on the cameras. If the TIME is incorrect, then why would we believe that the DATE is correct? That leaves us with taking their word for it, which I'm not willing to do. Just to be clear, nothing against the photographers – good work all! It's the USE of questionable images to support a narrative that I find disturbing.
Even were the times and dates appropriate for the event, EVERY image is designed to support the photographer's narrative, even if subconsciously. The fact, a picture is worth a thousand words, doesn't guarantee the truth of those words, not that the photographers are lying but, even among the most objective photographers, they can't shoot everything and can't know, for sure, what IS the truth.
I saw it when I examined the images; I just didn't mention it in the post.
It's possible that some of the photographers forgot to check the date/time on their cameras. This is a very common thing. Given that the photographs used in the Al Jazeera article are from wire services, they would have had to have gone through at least one editor to double check things, so I'd trust they show what they say.
Wasim Ahmad is trolling you, Trump supporters :)
Stupid article
I visit this site for interesting articles related to photography. This is neither. WTF?
It seem that I need to start looking for a better place to read interesting articles about photography.
I just came back to fstoppers after about two years of not reading it, and within a couple weeks, I am reminded why I left in the first place. FStoppers apparently hires ignorant, inept, undeucated people to write for their site, and it is abbhorent on all levels. I read through the comments, and it makes me happy that there are those, who aren't even Trump Supporters who can't understand the ignorance of the author of this post. Sad...
Yeah, been off two years and then coming back just to leave a stale impression and voting other people down. Well done, buddy!
This opinion piece has met the purpose of driving a conversation! I don’t think the photo in contention is the best storyteller, but it has subtle quality like showing POTUS45 holding the Bible backside to front and upside down. It’s not a headliner photo, imo, but all that work, social travesty and setup for a tepid, church pose has a karmic outcome for the poser.
Lay down the crack pipe, Ahmed.
1. That photo you have up isn't the "infamous" photo.
2. "photographed so lackadaisically was a silent cry for help from a photographer who’s just had enough". Sounds like you're making excuses for the shitty job she did. She's a professional photographer like you are a journalist.
No agenda here... (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with the AlJazeera links as "well established" proof.) This has NOTHING to do with photo technique and everything to do with your political axe grinding.
Oh boy, there is a lot of comments starting with a variation of "Please no political posts here" before leaning hard into politics.
There is nothing wrong with this picture. It is brilliant portrait of Trump showing who and what he is. Job well done (for the opposition)
Have a look at the situation and imagine you are a (the) photographer. A hard job, that one can tell.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1267648379917488128
This video is so illuminating about just how hard this particular job was.
This site is so evidently being brigaded by pro trumps it's hilarious.
Regardless of the quality of this opinion piece or your political leaning, it's facinating to see any pro trump comment go straight to +21...
If you’re a Trump supporter you’re more likely to come here and defend against the comments which are negative towards Trump. A controversial figure such as trump featuring in an article on any platform regardless of the point of said article will draw a strong defence. Hence the comments and high downvote numbers on comments which appear negative towards Trump.
Have a source on that phenomena? Like a peer reviewed study?
Because tome it still looks like troll farms.
To get an idea of the demographic reading this article please upvote this comment if you would vote for Trump in the next election and a downvote if you would vote for someone else.
No, no, no.
Most readers here argue that we should keep politics out of the comments. You're just fanning the fire a little more. Don't, please.
It’s a shame there is any fire at all. Politics will enter the comments section. We cannot prevent that. My question is given that inevitability why can’t it be discussed amicably?
1. Political discussions have a tendency to derail and become messy (see here). Hoping for a amicable exchange of ideas is (I'm sorry to say) naive.
2. Once the results are in, what would we do with it? "Just out of curiosity" is not good enough considering this is a photography site.
I agree but it is worth bringing up the point. Heck, if one person reads my comment and decides to adjust their approach then that is a step in the right direction.
In terms of the results well perhaps it might aide the content creators to consider how they may in future approach an article such as this that could easily spiral into a nasty mess. Maybe I'm asking for too much. I'll probably remove the comment.